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At some point during the next year, Gov. Nathan Deal might have to come up with the correct answer to a most difficult question: Is spending tax money on a new stadium for Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank so important that it justifies throwing away the job of governor?

Blank thinks it would be a great idea for the state to spend $300 million from a hotel-motel tax to help pay for a billion-dollar stadium that would replace the Georgia Dome.

The folks at the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (WCCA) are willing to go along with this proposal.

United States Sen. Saxby Chambliss is hearing thunder from the right – and plenty of it – as he prepares for a possible run for reelection in 2014.

It’s been widely rumored that Rep. Tom Price, a Roswell Republican, has been considering a challenge to Chambliss in the GOP primary. That rumor picked up more strength when Price recently tried – and failed – to win a leadership position in the U.S. House’s Republican caucus.

There is something about U. S. Rep. John Barrow that drives normally even-tempered politicians into a frenzy.

Ever since he upset Republican incumbent Max Burns in 2004 for the 12th District seat, the state’s GOP establishment has made it a priority to drive Barrow out of Congress.

They are still trying.

In 2005, after taking control of the General Assembly, Republicans redrew the 12th District boundary lines to remove Clarke County, where Barrow was raised and served for 14 years on the county commission.

The election is over and we know who our president and members of Congress are going to be. Let’s take a few minutes and look at some of the other winners and losers in Georgia politics.

Winner: Gov. Nathan Deal.

After he took a beating on the T-SPLOST transportation tax, the governor recovered to lead the charge on the charter school constitutional amendment, approved by more than 58 percent of the state’s voters.

Regardless of how the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney plays out, Georgia Republicans should have something significant to celebrate the day after the election.

Just eight years after the GOP took control of the General Assembly in the 2004 elections, they are poised to win more than two-thirds control of both legislative chambers (that’s 120 seats in the House of Representatives and 38 in the Senate).

With all of the attention that has been focused on the constitutional amendment dealing with the creation of state charter schools, many voters may not be aware that there is an “Amendment 2” on the ballot as well.

If approved by the voters, the amendment would allow state agencies to sign multi-year leases to rent property for government offices and related facilities. Currently, the state cannot sign an agreement to lease property for more than a year at a time.

The campaign on the charter school constitutional amendment seems destined to end up in a courtroom rather than a classroom.

During the past couple of weeks, I haven’t heard many constructive discussions on this important issue. The talk instead has been dominated by threats of lawsuits and litigation, and even prosecutions over the campaign tactics being used by the two sides.

In the middle of all these legal threats has been the state’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Sam Olens.

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney go head-to-head this week in the first of three presidential debates, with the initial one at the University of Denver.

History tells us it’s unlikely the debate will dramatically change the course of the presidential race, one way or the other.

Even though debates might not swing many votes, it’s still important for voters to see how the candidates make their case for why they should be president and defend their position from the other side’s criticisms.

One of the saddest bits of news I’ve seen in a while was an announcement last week from the office of Secretary of State Brian Kemp.

To comply with an order from the governor’s Office of Planning and Budget to cut spending by $730,000, Kemp will lay off most employees of the state archives and close the facility to the general public on Nov. 1.